Tidbits from Crean’s radio show

Tonight Tom Crean’s radio show was aired as a pre-recorded tape. Indiana was en route to Wisconsin tonight. Most of what he said was a reiteration of talking points from earlier today, but there were a few points of intrigue.

— Crean said the Hoosiers practiced in Cook Hall all week until returning to Assembly Hall for practice on Sunday while engineers evaluated and fixed the issues at Assembly Hall. Crean said he thought it was good to get out of their typical elements.

“I think you’re always trying to change it up,” Crean said. “We practice in Assembly Hall so much because our players utilize Cook Hall so much for individual workouts and for their own workouts when they’re shooting their own. We’re not a really (regimented team) because the game is not that way to me. We took Wednesday off rather than Thursday because at that point we knew we weren’t going to play on that Thursday. Bottom line is we were fresh, we were ready, we were excited to go. At the same time during the week, we started preparing mentally and how we would approach practice based on the fact that we would have three games coming up this week.”

Crean said he doesn’t tend to give the practice schedule to the players ahead of time anyway and they don’t operate on a fixed practice schedule. (Dustin’s note: I’ve wondered for five years on the beat why we as media members never find out for sure when press availability is scheduled for until about noon the day of, and even then the time is at best an educated guess. This explains everything.)

“I never give the schedule out. We’re not a program that does that. I think the bottom line is, the No. 1 reason is that they have to be prepared for anything. It’s always play-on-demand. You have to compete on demand. You have to be ready to change at the drop of a hat. The bottom line is these guys know we’re gonna practice. They don’t always know how it’s gonna be. In this case, they didn’t know where it’s gonna be. But the bottom line is that you want people to be able to concentrate through chaos. You want them to be able to adjust through adversity of circumstances. The bottom line is hopefully it helps them win games.”

— Crean said he was extremely impressed at the work of IU engineers and officials in response to the falling-metal-plate situation.

“It was a machine over at Assembly Hall,” Crean said. “Everyone was just trying to figure it out. No one was prepared for it, obviously. But when you’re trying to figure it out, you’re making all of these adjustments. They made a decisive decision they couldn’t play that night. That was the right decision. I don’t think that was ever a question. … To see (vice president of capital projects) Tom Morrison in action was pretty impressive.”

— Crean pointed out that senior Will Sheehey is the only player on the team who has played at the Kohl Center.

— A telling quote on the difference in the team over the course of a week.

“I thought our guys did a really good job of executing coming out of timeouts,” Crean said. “Talking. We got excellent leadership especially out of Will and Yogi. We had a very improved week. We had a very, very improved week. To be where we were mentally last Saturday against Purdue versus where we were mentally on Saturday against Northwestern, pretty impressive jump. That’s what we’re capable of when we really lock in.”

— Crean was asked by Don Fischer about recruiting for eventualities such as players leaving early for the NBA or transferring. This got interesting.

“Without question you have to. Because if you sit back and you think it’s gonna work itself out or you think you can just be moderate with it or you think, ‘Well, everything will be fine.’ It’s never that way. None of us had any inkling whatsoever that Remy was gonna want to transfer a year ago. Maurice was a different story because Maurice had spent so much time getting better and still went through a whole month’s period time last year where he couldn’t play. He was extremely limited in practice and the days he could practice. Even going to the last week of the year where we’re playing Syracuse and we’re trying to hold Jordan out because of his injury, and Maurice couldn’t even go as much. So you knew in that situation, OK, for this to work and for him to really have an opportunity to make money in the game, he may need to go because he wants the opportunity to play. None of that is gonna matter if he’s not healthy, but the good news for him is that he’s been healthy. But you have to be preparing for the rainy day. You have to be prepared for what’s behind Door No. 3, you can’t only be thinking about Door No. 1 and 2. If you’re not, it’s gonna be a big mistake. You’re recruiting all the classes. You have your ear to the ground and you have to have it all covered. You’re trying to keep it a secret as it can possibly be with what your thoughts are. That doesn’t mean it’s not public who you’re recruiting, but you to keep your thoughts that way. I always go back to a year ago when we were oversigned by three and conspiracy theorists wanted to dive in and what does this mean. Then all the sudden, we’re under by one. You always have this feeling of what could happen in your program. That doesn’t mean you share it. But at the same time, you might have no idea, and you better be prepared, because it could happen.”

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8 comments

If I’m Noah Vonleh’s equally good hypothetical twin, and I am one year behind Vonleh in school, do I want to sign up class of 2014-15 at IU?

Maybe not! Why? Because I would be concerned that Vonleh might stay and if he does, I’m going to be a back-up. I’ll get far less playing time next year than I could get elsewhere.

So Coach Crean is theoretically having a hard time recruiting for the Vonleh’s replacement. And he lost Luke Fisher, his likely back up to Marquette!

Now, if instead, Vonleh leaves, then what? You’ve recruited a bunch of stud shooters to fill the shooting void you’ve had this year (and note that players don’t always perform to advertisement – witness the fact that Etherington and Hartman were supposed to be deadeye shooters, and neither has performed to expectation for some reason). So we’ve got shooters like Blackmon and Johnson coming in next year, assuming that THEY perform to expectation, which is not a given!

So, in theory, next year, you could have a team of shooters with no center. You could go from having no perimeter to having a doughnut – nothing in the center.

And, correspondingly then, I suppose the following year, you recruit a center —- and all your shooters leave.

Etc.

How can you win unless you pull a Calipari and recruit a whole class at once.

Maybe that’s the answer, as much as I don’t like Calipari’s operation, but that is for other reasons. But then, I guess, Crean would just announce that everyone has to go pro after a year, even if they end up in Poland, Israel and Malta (or the local playground!). Then, each year, you have a wholesale new class all at once! And then, most years, you suffer freshmanitis.

On the other hand,Vonleh’s clone could be saying to himself, “If Noah leaves, I’m the man. If he stays, IU could have a modern day version of the Twin Towers. That would be pretty awesome.” Nice post, Westcoast.

Crean referring to “conspiracy theorists”….? I guess that means Kent Sterling seeing how Kent claims he has trusted sources that know Remy was asked to leave.

And we all know why Gordon was brought in.

Dustin-

Can’t junior college transfers gain immediate eligibility? Wasn’t DeAndre Thomas a JC transfer? I would imagine Crean is currently searching the JC marketplace far and wide for some inside help in the event Noah pulls out for the NBA. There’s gotta be some quality JC talent out there that would love to put on an Indiana jersey.